57 Muslim nations urged to besiege Israel

Erdogan's Islamic newspaper demands 'army' be launched against U.S. ally in Mideast

A Turkish newspaper close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party is urging 57 Islamic nations to build a joint army specifically to attack Israel, notes a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

It was published shortly ahead of a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has 57 members, MEMRI reported.

The article notes, MEMRI said, “that such a joint army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in manpower, equipment and budget, and presents statistics to prove this.”

“It also advocates establishing joint bases for the army’s ground, air and naval forces that will arrive from all over the Muslim world to besiege Israel, while noting that Pakistan, as the only nuclear country, has ‘a special status’ among the OIC countries,” the report said.

MEMRI explained that many of the major points in the newspaper article were “taken from the website of the Turkish SADAT International Defense and Consulting Company, which provides consultancy on defense and warfare, both conventional and unconventional, and on military organization, training and gear.”

“The company has an agenda of promoting pan-Islamic military cooperation. According to its mission statement, it seeks ‘to establish defense collaboration and defense industry cooperation among Islamic countries, to help the Islamic world take its rightful place among the superpowers by providing … strategic consultancy and training services to the militaries and homeland security forces of Islamic countries.'”

The article states: “It becomes evident that the member states’ [joint] military might greatly exceeds that of Israel. Moreover, in a possible military operation, this superiority [can] be realized on the ground by [setting up] joint military bases for ground, air and naval forces.”

It says that if the OIC member states “unite and form a joint military force, it will be the largest army in the world.”

“These countries’ total population is 1,674,526,931. The number of soldiers in active service in these countries is at least 5,206,100.”

The newspaper calls Israel “significantly inferior” and says that “this country, which attempted to occupy Jerusalem while surrounded by Muslim states” has a population of only about 8 million, while Istanbul alone exceeds 14 million.